


You Were About to Say "Homicide", Weren't You? (The Non-Alcoholic Remix)

by Gray Cardinal (Gray_Cardinal)



Category: Castle, Murder She Wrote
Genre: AU, Crossover, Gen, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-30
Updated: 2011-04-30
Packaged: 2017-10-18 19:48:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/192584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gray_Cardinal/pseuds/Gray%20Cardinal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jessica had always been there when she was needed.  (AU for <i>Castle</i>, pre-series.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Were About to Say "Homicide", Weren't You? (The Non-Alcoholic Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Medie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/gifts).
  * Inspired by [And a Bottle of Whiskey to Wash It Down](https://archiveofourown.org/works/61034) by [Medie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie). 



> _Murder, She Wrote_ was created by Richard Levinson and William Link; Jessica Fletcher belongs to some combination of CBS, Universal, Corymore Productions, and their corporate friends and relations. _Castle_ is the creation of Andrew W. Marlowe and the Castleverse belongs (more or less) to ABC Studios. This story is purely a figment of the author’s imagination.
> 
> Where _Castle_ is concerned, this is AU with a vengeance. And yet...

Kate didn’t have to look to know she was there; Jessica Fletcher had always been there when she was needed.

#

Jessica had been a friend of Johanna Beckett’s; even now, Kate wasn’t sure what the connection had been.  So of course she had been on hand to comfort and support Kate and her father when Johanna was murdered – and to see what the police had been so carefully overlooking.  Between her skilled spadework, her polite but relentless badgering, and her astonishing network of legal and political contacts, Jessica had unraveled the murder and put paid to a remarkably ambitious criminal conspiracy.  And Kate had watched the entire process, growing more fascinated with every twist and turn.

It had propelled her inevitably into police work.  Kate’s bond with Jessica had been forged not merely by loyalty and devotion in the face of loss, but by the rock-steady, principled idealism that Johanna and Jessica both exemplified.  Kate had been first shocked, then deeply angry on learning that the detectives assigned to investigate her mother’s murder had tried to cover up the truth, and there had never been any doubt afterward as to her choice of career.

Nor had Jessica’s support wavered in the years since.  Though she continued her writing and her wide-ranging travels once the Becketts were back on their feet, she kept in close touch with Kate.  Jessica always found time for lunch or dinner when she passed through New York, made a point of attending Kate’s college commencement exercises, and – Kate suspected – had put a quiet word in one or two well-placed ears when Kate applied to the NYPD.

By the time Kate made Detective, the realities of aging found Jessica scaling back both her globetrotting and her writing schedule.  She was still in remarkably good health, but even her old friend Dr. Hazlitt had recommended she slow down a bit.  And both he and Kate suggested that – Heaven forfend – should the need arise, New York’s medical resources would far outshine those available in Cabot Cove.

So for the second time in her life, Jessica found a modest Manhattan apartment, and she and Kate promptly set up regular Sunday dinner dates – the third of which was, of course, interrupted when Kate was called out for a homicide.  Despite Kate’s invitation, Jessica refused to come along to the crime scene, but when the ensuing investigation stalled, it was a conversation with Jessica that gave Kate the insight she needed to break the case.  After the third similar incident, Jessica bowed to the inevitable, and – with the full blessing of Kate’s captain – acquired semi-official status as a consultant, though she did her best to keep her contributions out of the public eye.

#

“Jessica!” Kate said, turning around.  “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Oh, I couldn’t have missed this,” said the older woman.  “But I didn’t realize you read—”

Kate held up a hand.  “It’s not what you think; this is work.  I need to talk to the guest of honor.”

Jessica’s eyebrows went up.  “Surely he isn’t—?”

Kate shrugged.  “Not likely.  Then again, we only just found the body.”

“Over this way, then,” Jessica said.  She led Kate toward the bar set up at one side of the room, where a tall man stood talking to a teen-aged girl seated at the end of the counter.  Kate took him in at a glance.  Ruggedly handsome, check; the jacket photos hadn’t lied.  Well-dressed, check, though he clearly bought what he liked without paying attention to the names on the labels.  Ladies’ man, check; she’d noticed five women with autographed body parts on the way across the room.  Then again, the vibe between him and the teenager was something else entirely.

At their approach, he turned, drawing a pen from his pocket.  “Where would you—Aunt Jess, you came!”  The pen vanished as he folded Jessica into a firm but careful hug. Then he stepped back, asking, ”And who is this vision of loveliness with you?” 

“Kate Beckett, Homi—”  She broke off in mid-word, shifting to stare at Jessica.  “Wait a second.  Richard Castle is your _nephew_?”

“Well, yes.”  Jessica’s expression was half proud, half rueful.  “Though the exact blood tie is a trifle complicated.”

Castle’s, by contrast, was unabashedly eager.  “You were about to say _homicide_ , weren’t you?”

Kate took a deep breath.  The eagerness fit with the streak of...call it irreverence toward authority, she decided, that had shown up during Ryan’s background check.  But even the nude-horseback-riding incident was mostly harmless, and his body language toward both Jessica and the teenager hinted at a steel-forged center beneath his playful persona.

“I was,” she said.  “Mr. Castle, I have some crime scene photos you need to see.”

Castle’s eyes went wide and bright, like a small boy who’d just seen a bicycle parked next to his Christmas tree.  “At your service!  Alexis,” he added, glancing over his shoulder, “tell your grandmother I may be out late.  If she doesn’t head home with you, she’s on her own.”

The teenager gave Castle a long-suffering smile.  “Got it, Dad.”  Then she leaned sideways in her chair, caught Kate’s eye, and said, “Don’t let him play with the lights or the siren.  And it’s all right if you have to arrest him, as long as it’s not actually for murder.”

Only a supreme effort of will kept Kate’s eyebrows from rising halfway up her forehead.  “Understood,” she told Alexis, then turned and led Jessica and Castle toward the exit, beckoning Esposito toward her as they went.

“Boss?” Esposito asked softly as he reached her side.

“Aspirin,” Kate told him just as quietly.  “I have a feeling I’m going to need it.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> As fans may recognize, the closing scene here re-interprets the party sequence from the series-opening episode of _Castle_ , “Flowers For Your Grave”.


End file.
